11/11/11

Veterans Day in the U.S. seems to have gotten the media attention, but the date of 11-11-11 did not go by unnoticed.  It was a popular date for weddings in Vegas, and babies born today (especially those at 11:11) became temporarily famous. The number was so popular in the day's lotteries that several states put caps on them.  A number of rumors involving arcane rites that might be conducted at the Great Pyramid because of the date caused Eygptian officials to close it for "necessary maintenance."

Then there are supposed connections of 11-11-11 to the Mayan Apocalypse of 2012, but don't expect me to explain it because I can't.  (Here's an attempt I still don't understand.)  What all this does seem to show is the power of the "Immediacy Media" (a term I just made up) of Facebook, Twitter etc. to conjure a global phenomenon out of thin air.

Sunshine Today

Update: The postponment of the pipeline approval is official now, and attacks have already begun from GOPers on the issues of jobs and energy.  They are also asserting that this was a decision based on electoral politics.  With his crowing of victory, McKibben is playing into that perception.  It's worth mentioning that though the President made the final decision, the recommendation to postpone came from the State Department.  They want to consider all the factors.  From their statement: "After obtaining the additional information, the Department would determine, in consultation with the eight other agencies identified in the Executive Order, whether the proposed pipeline was in the national interest, considering all of the relevant issues together. Among the relevant issues that would be considered are environmental concerns (including climate change), energy security, economic impacts, and foreign policy."

While I've joined in the call to stop the pipeline, I recognize--as apparently environmentalists who seem capable of congratulating only themselves do not--the other considerations, and the questions that have not been answered.  One of these has to do with the impact on the Climate Crisis, if Canada decides to exploit their resource anyway and sell the energy to China.  I'd like to hear that addressed.  And it would be nice if the Obama administration got a little credit for taking the political heat for pulling back from a project that at least looked like it could generate jobs in hard times.  



Several news outlets are reporting that the Obama administration will postpone a decision on the tar sands pipeline from Canada for at least a year, which means among other things until after the election.  It will still probably emerge as a campaign issue but not as prominently, and perhaps a better final decision can be made outside the heat of that kind of politics.

Meanwhile, progress towards ending such dependence on fossil fuels continues.  California has passed a milestone in solar energy--one gigawatt installed, joining five entire countries in solar capacity.   Paul Krugman has added his economically inclined voice to, well, mine, in championing solar energy as the energy source of the present-becoming-future:

"We are, or at least we should be, on the cusp of an energy transformation, driven by the rapidly falling cost of solar power. That’s right, solar power. If that surprises you, if you still think of solar power as some kind of hippie fantasy, blame our fossilized political system, in which fossil fuel producers have both powerful political allies and a powerful propaganda machine that denigrates alternatives."

Which of course the Koch Brothers are all about, and the GOP, which is a mostly owned subsidiary of fossil fuel industries.  Krugman points out that one of the fossils with a new look--fracking--violates the principles that GOPers chant incessantly:

"So it’s worth pointing out that special treatment for fracking makes a mockery of free-market principles. Pro-fracking politicians claim to be against subsidies, yet letting an industry impose costs without paying compensation is in effect a huge subsidy. They say they oppose having the government “pick winners,” yet they demand special treatment for this industry precisely because they claim it will be a winner."

But despite the fossils who prevent the scale of investment in solar energy that a sane nation would insist on, the cost of solar energy is dropping rapidly and Krugman writes that it won't be long before electricity generated by the sun will be as cheap as that generated by coal.  That of course won't stop the fossils from pouring their billions into disinformation and worse, but it will persuade the 99%.

Hope is On the Way

 It's the morning after election day 2011, and the news could hardly be better: Ohio voted resoundingly to repeal the GOPer anti-union law. Maine voted to repeal a GOPer law that ended same day voter registration, by a wide margin. Mississippi voted down the bizarre but dangerous amendment that would have declared a fertilized egg a person, taking anti-abortionism into Orwellian territory.  And in a very conservative state, it wasn't even close.  Arizona voted out  the author of its anti-immigrant law.

It's almost exactly a year until election day 2012, and it's game on.  Voter anger and disgust with the GOP is strong and getting stronger.  There's more evidence that Americans believe that GOPers are subverting the economy for their supposed gain, while independents and moderates are on the President's side.   While Occupy Wall Street has shifted attention to the banks most responsible for the ongoing economic downturn and its injustice, President Obama has shifted the debate from deficits to the crisis in jobs, and he's rising in the polls.  Another court victory upholding the Affordable Care Act may yet contribute to more approval for what should have always been a popular achievement.

 So that means game on, and this tremendous change in the zeitgeist means among other things that the Obama campaign can focus on making the choice clear, and the consequences of electing GOPers who are committed to policies and attitudes that would further wreck the present and bury the future, making Herbert Hoover confronting the Depression look good in comparison.  That's the implication of the video above, and it should to be thrust of the campaign against Newt Romney, the likely GOPer nominee--not on his flipflopping as on his actual very scary proposals, as per this post.  It should also encourage President Obama to be even bolder.

Wall Street Week

The momentum continues, and the movement flowers.  Given the amount of time I can spend on following it, I'm always behind.  So here are a few notes.

First, on the various urgings for people to move their money out of the big banks and into smaller community institutions, especially credit unions.  First there was Bank Transfer Day, which got the attention of Forbes,  and which Kos judged a great success.  That was actually more than one day, but it ended this past weekend.  Another action was Tuesday: Dump Your Bank Day, which got the Monitor's attention.  The numbers are impressive so far, but the power of it may be even more in what it says about support for other actions and proposals.

Like the financial transaction tax, which also goes by the name of the Robin Hood Tax--a very very small tax on all financial transactions that could yield amazing amounts of money for all kinds of good things.  When I posted that great Bill Nighy video that explains it with very droll comedy, I thought it was mostly a British and European idea.  But according to Rachel, not so.  The U.S. actually had such a tax, from around World War I to the late 1960s.  President Obama and his administration considered it in 2009 and almost proposed it--and still are interested in a more targeted version, on big banks.

Last week, primarily union folks (including a lot of nurses, see photo above) through Occupy, marched on the U.S. Treasury building to demand just such a financial transaction tax. Two Democrats filed a bill to impose one.  Among its supporters is Bill Gates.  But there were sufficient complications that the G20 didn't endorse one.  Still, it's a live idea.

As for Occupy, there are signs that it is both a movement that is developing targeted direct actions, like preventing a foreclosure or keeping the heat working in an apartment building.  But at the same time, it is incubating a subculture--one that seems naturally committed to non-violence and participatory democracy, which is requiring improvizations and inventions, but also focus on serious things.  It is a wonder to watch.   

Emerson for the Day

“There is no worse enemy of God and Man than zeal armed with power and guided by a feeble intellect...The great lesson of history is to keep power of life and death away from that kind of mind, the mind that sees things in the light of evil and dread and mistrust rather than that of hope.”

William James

The Pipeline to Oblivion

On Sunday, reports Think Progress,"more than 12,000 people from across the United States and Canada gathered at the White House to call on President Obama to stop the TransCanada Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. After a rally in Lafayette Square addressed by elected officials, youth climate activists, environmental leaders, climate scientist James Hansen, religious leaders, Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams, Naomi Klein, and local opponents of the pipeline from South Dakota, Texas, and Nebraska, the boisterous crowd formed a human chain that completely encircled the White House."

Meanwhile, Politico suggests that many expect President Obama won't make the final decision on the pipeline until after the election, probably citing environmental concerns that must first be addressed.

Still Crazy: Dick Gregory at the Sunday demo

There are other environmental issues involved--and that's the problem, there always are--but a major one is the accelerating effect on the Climate Crisis.  Well-funded denialism is one big problem to confronting this.  Ordinary, natural, 'I-don't-want-to-contemplate-the-end of life as we know it so let's obsess on Kardashians' denial is another.  A third is crappy communication--dumb media, environmentalists and scientists who can't say anything clearly or in a compelling way.  Perhaps a combination of all of them explains why manifestations of the Climate Crisis right now either don't get attention in the media at all or for very long, as well as not being reported as manifestations of the Climate Crisis.

 This becomes really obvious when such manifestations happen far, far away, or to mostly poor people of another race.  Places like Thailand, where more than 500 people have died in flooding that has resulted from unusually heavy and persistent rains.    

Waking Up to the War on Voting

The so far successful legislative efforts in a number of states to limit voting rights had gone virtually unnoticed for months, except for a few voices, notably Rachel Maddow.  So it's fitting that her show be quoted announcing that Democrats are finally paying attention, and starting to do something about it.  (Note by the way in her script below the phrase "vote anyway.")

Dems in both the House and the Senate want to hold hearings.  But more substantively (from the Maddow transcript of Thursday): 

"Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison todayintroducing two new bills. One would allow you to register and then vote on the same day in federal elections. The other bill from Congressman Ellison would ban states from requiring you to show photo ID when you vote, since millions of eligiblevoters in the country do not have photo ID.

Also in the Obama re-election campaign, signs that they are taking seriously these Republican laws to make voting so much harder in 2012. The Wall Street Journal" reporting today that President Obama`s former White House counsel, a big powerful, big deal of a lawyer named Bob Bauer,is heading up efforts to battle back the Republicans on this with a multi-pronged effort that includes stopping these laws when they can be stopped and helping voters targeted by these laws figure out how to vote anyway though it has been made so much harder for them.

That the White House picked a lawyer like Bob Bauer shows that this drive to protect voting will not just be a matter of educating people about what ID they need and how to get it. The White House picking its own chief lawyer shows it is ready to bring serious legal muscle to this."

"What do you think, Barack?"

So here's a line leading a Reuter's report on the financial crisis in Europe that caught my eye: "Use the Reuters Breakingviews stress test calculator to calculate how the Target core Tier 1 capital ratio and sovereign haircut levels affect the amount of capital banks need to pass the stress test."

Right.  Well, apart from George III instructing his barber to take a little off the sides, I have no idea what a sovereign haircut level could mean.  So I have no idea what's actually going on in the European debt crisis, except that if it isn't solved, it could mean another recession in the U.S.

President Obama was in France meeting with European leaders on the crisis.  Apparently there was a deal in the works that fell apart at least temporarily due to more problems in Greece.  President Obama had expected to be on hand to express support for the done deal, but as it turned out he became an advisor to the European leaders.  He essentially chaired a panel discussion, and offered advice based on U.S. experience with the banking crisis of 2008-9.  According to an aide, the leaders wanted to know "What do you think, Barack?"   Regardless of the ignoramuses who think America leads with bluster and intimidation or is weak, this indicates actual respect for our President (though they are certainly mindful of U.S. economic power.)  Partnership and mutual respect-- the way to a better future.

As to what actually did and didn't happen at the G20, this Monitor article seems a decent summary.

KochCain: It's Official

“I’m very proud to know the Koch brothers... I am the Koch brothers’ brother from another mother.”

Herman KochCain
11/4/11

We Really Can't Wait

I've just started reading a 1984 science fiction novel by Kim Stanley Robinson called Icehenge.  The first section (which in many ways seems a clear forerunner to his Mars trilogy) is set in 2248, and has the common glitch of futures written then of referring to the Soviet Union.  But it also mentions an earth troubled by resource depletion, environmental and political problems due to the burdens of a population of six billion.

And in the real world of November 2011, Earth's human population reached 7 billion.  It is the burden that is least talked about by environmentalists and politicos alike--the very definition of that wearisome cliche, the elephant in the room.  It is the elephant, and the room.

It's a major factor in how hard it is going to be for the planet to respond to not only dwindling fossil fuel and the consequences of immense environmental poisoning and other destruction, but to the Climate Crisis.  

It took about 24 hours for the environmental community to pick up on Politico's report of some surprising statements by President Obama, pretty much stating an environmental case against the oil pipeline, the Keystone/oil sands project that Bill McKibben and other Climate Crisis activists have been agitating about for weeks.  So in the past couple of days a number of stories about it have emerged, in the mainstream press as well as enviro sites like Real Climate.   So whatever is going to happen now, is not going to happen quietly.  Update: I forgot to note that McKibben's group and allies are converging on Washington this Sunday, and asking supporters to join them. 

The Real Climate piece again quotes James Hansen as saying this pipeline will mean "game over" for attempts to limit the effects of the Climate Crisis.  But then there's this story, indicating that despite all the talk and so-called treaties, the amount of greenhouse gases spewed into the atmosphere jumped significantly in recent years, so that their concentration in 2010 is higher than the worst case scenario of climate experts four years ago.  That's not encouraging, let alone good news for attempts to save the planet from our worst.

Though there's been little doubt in the science--the case only getting stronger and more detailed--the media has waxed and waned on the facts of global heating.  In view of that recent study, more media outlets have seized the opportunity to call it settled.  One predicted phenomenon that follows from this may also be gaining credibility: that extreme weather is becoming the new normal.  All of this as folks are getting wind of a very grim IPPC report in the works.  The Climate Crisis is going to drive the future, and even though it's pretty scary--even paralyzing or surreal to consider--it's much better to recognize this now instead of when panic sets in.

We Can't Wait

While the political media obsessed over GOPer entertainments that will soon be forgotten, President Obama has continued his relentless Pass This Bill campaign to build public support for action to create jobs and help the country come out of this recession stronger than when it went in.  Three sections of his original jobs bill have been reintroduced separately, and all three stopped in the Senate by unanimous GOPer opposition to even discussing them.  The latest was Thursday, when the Senate by a 51-49 vote, stopped consideration of a bill that would immediately hire workers to rebuild American infrastructure, basically because it would be paid for by a .07 tax increase on the very few Americans who make more than one million dollars a year.  Supporters by the way were the 51--they had a majority to pass the bill, but not the 60 required to override the GOPer filibuster.

Why Congress is so intent on protecting the 1% became clearer with this chart introduced Thursday: it's because an awful lot of Congress is among the 1%.

At the same time, President Obama began his We Can't Wait initiatives, attacking some of the most pressing problems with executive orders, wherever possible.  The President took some administrative steps to make it easier for hard-pressed Americans to re-finance their home mortgages.  He announced steps to help returning veterans to get jobs in community health.  He announced several changes to help students deal with crushing school loan debts.  Although none of these are large-scale solutions, each one of them will make a big positive difference for at least some thousands of people.  (We Can't Wait, by the way, was also the title of a book by Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Polls continue to show that on his job proposals, the American public is strongly on his side.  These efforts tend to get lost in the media frenzy and the political spin on everything (the irony being that MSNBC spends more time talking about GOPers than Obama by a factor of ten, and despite their oppositional slant on everything Obama, FOX actually spends more time reporting what he actually says and does.)  

But GOPer congressional intransigence is not going by unnoticed.  How about this for a poll in Florida?  Very close to a majority believe that the GOP is deliberately sabotaging the American economy for political gain. Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly writes: "Here’s a suggestion for other pollsters: given these results in one of the nation’s largest states, and the fact that the charge has been made by so many prominent political voices, perhaps it’s time to start putting the question to a national audience?"

This is the Washington element shaping the future.  But in these volatile and chaotic days, much is happening outside Washington with just as much power to shape that future: in Oakland (where the Occupy actions get larger, wider and more significant), in Ohio (going to the polls to vote on a union-busting law) and right now in Europe, where President Obama meets with leaders who must steady European finances or else plunge themselves into another recession, taking the U.S. down with them.

Then there's what's happening to the planet: subject of the post above.

JFK and Obama

Chris Matthews has been aggressively shilling for his new book, Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero.  And shamelessly, using major amounts of time on his own show to do so.  That's an observation, I don't actually know how I feel about it.

But to pump up interest in the book, Matthews has been making a lot of comparisons between JFK and President Obama.  Some of his points are interesting and worth checking out (when quantitative), others are interpretations that seem at least partly colored by his admiration for JFK.  Not surprisingly, he thinks Obama is no JFK, particularly in his personal relationships with other politicians and media figures.  At times he seems to be saying that President Obama is too aloof.

Well, the two American Presidents of my lifetime that I admire the most are JFK and Barack Obama.  As Matthews must surely know, JFK was criticized in his time for being aloof, distant, too cool for school.  (And people were forever saying that what he needed to do was communicate better with the American public, and/or resurrect FDR's New Deal programs.)  Whereas President Obama gets tagged as "professsorial,"  JFK was supposedly too "reserved" and intellectual--not the gladhander his brother Joe had been, for example.  Teddy was the one who was said to have the people skills.

On the other hand, I marvel at President Obama's enthusiasm and warmth in dealing with people.  It's evident to me that he's a tactile person--he always has his hands on someone's arm or shoulder.  Compare him with eight out of ten American men, and he scores high on people skills.  President Obama is especially good with ordinary people in a way that the "reserved" JFK could not match.



Caroline Kennedy with Michelle Obama
in the White House this week.

 As for all the other ways Obama doesn't measure up to JFK (as it was said that JFK didn't measure up to FDR), I offer one compelling piece of evidence: the Kennedys.  Caroline Kennedy, Teddy Kennedy, Bobby's wife, the wife of the sitting Republican governor of California-- almost the entire surviving Kennedy clan were way out in front in embracing Barack Obama, and making the analogy of Obama to JFK (Caroline Kennedy did so explicitly in a New York Times oped.)  It was the Kennedy imprimatur that propelled Obama through some tough primaries.

These are different times--even more different than JFK's 60s were from FDR's 30s and 40s, in political terms.  I don't see that much increased chance that President Obama would be getting his jobs program through the GOPer House if he just played cards every night with Eric Cant.  So while Matthews makes some good points about Democrats who should be publicly supporting the President better, I just don't buy the idea that if Obama were more like JFK he would be so much more effective. Nor would he be cruising to reelection.  (By Matthews own admission, JFK didn't believe he was cruising to reelection in 1964 either.)  Matthews' book sounds very interesting, but I favor the Kennedy family's judgments about JFK and President Obama.

Circus News

It's hard to even summarize the past few surreal days in the GOPer presidential race.  The Herman KochCain sexual harassment story is still evolving (as are his answers), but it obliterated the more immediately substantive story of improper campaign funding, involving the Kochs.  Whether KochCain survives all this long enough to start losing primaries is still an open question, but it does look like the already tanking Cowboy Rick is done (despite all his money), since he stuck a fork in himself with his bizarre speech in New Hampshire.  He was either drunk, high on something else or helplessly coming out.  These guys are giving new meaning to the title of a 1980s book by Neil Postman: Entertaining ourselves to death.

Meanwhile Newt Romney has performed his most obvious flipflop to date, which gets no points for grace but full points for sheer effrontery.  He merely states now that he has no idea what causes climate change, whereas just a few months he stated with the same baritone sincerity that he believes it's real, it's caused by human industry and cutting greenhouse gases is a responsible task.  Yet it seems more likely than ever that he's going to be the GOPer nominee.

Folks handicapping the 2012 presidential race this far out are themselves engaged in entertainment only.  If the American economy is currently hostage not only to souldead GOPers in Congress but to European politics or even Greek politics, there are just too many factors.  However, pundits like Chris Matthews have narrowed the possibilities to a close election with either Obama or Romney winning, or a GOPer blowout.  The one alternative off the table as far as they are concerned is an Obama landslide.  Heh heh heh.  You guys.  Maybe Americans will be more mindlessly angry and scared than smart on election day 2012, but there is a clear path for the Obama campaign to turn this into a rout in their favor. 

Who has a better chance to fix the economy?  Most people agree with President Obama's ideas. All he needs is a Congress to pass stuff.  Romney's ideas will make matters much worse, and most people know that.  He's running as a slick Herbert Hoover.  The contrast between President Obama and Romney could itself be decisive.  What the polls say now is one thing.  Pennsylvania for example went for Hillary over Obama in the primary, but they went for Obama in the general decisively.  Two candidates.  Pick one.  After a campaign focused on the choice, this country could very well do what it did before: elect Obama in a landslide.

Occupy This

So what Occupy Wall Street firebrand just said this:

"Our Congress today is a forum for legalized bribery. One consumer group using information from Opensecrets.org calculates that the financial services industry, including real estate, spent $2.3 billion on federal campaign contributions from 1990 to 2010, which was more than the health care, energy, defense, agriculture and transportation industries combined. Why are there 61 members on the House Committee on Financial Services? So many congressmen want to be in a position to sell votes to Wall Street.  We can’t afford this any longer."

Yes, you guessed it--it's that well known radical, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times.

Because you know (from watching Fox and listening to Rush, and nothing else) that this radical movement is all about class warfare (i.e. Marxism) and socialism, especially when they propose to tax the obscenely rich a bit more.  Of course this tax increase on the wealthy is supported by two-thirds or more of the public, including (it now turns out) about 68% of the millionaires who would be the target of the millionaires tax.

GOPers scream at being accused of deliberately subverting the economy for political gain.  Well, it's either that or they are too stupid to read economic reports, which show that the jobs being shed are mainly government jobs thanks to their stupid economic theories (stupid because they demonstrably haven't worked) and stupid policies in Washington and in the states (though its cupidity as much as stupidity, of course.)  The latest example being the jobs that will be lost thanks to their federal spending cuts that they claimed would create jobs.  A quantitative assessment from the Center for American Progress figures that these cuts will result in the destruction of 370,000 more jobs. 

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus, 1883
engraved on the Statue of Liberty
Happy 125th Birthday, Lady Liberty!

What's Really Happening (Maybe)

Applying some educated intuition to stories from here and there, on three topics:

Iowa GOPer Caucus

One of the Iowa conservative leaders says he doesn't feel strongly enough about any candidate to endorse.  Meanwhile a Tea Party leaders calls on Michele Backmann to drop out.  Taken together what they mean: unless Teaevangelists coalesce around one candidate in Iowa very soon, Romney is going to win it.

The U.S. Economy

While the major media narrative remains the same, there have been signs of economic improvement, most recently of a higher than expected--and normally respectable--economic growth rate.  The conventional wisdom is that nothing will lessen the unemployment rate before the election enough to matter.  But a feeling that the economy is growing might--and it might even be Wall Street that gets behind it.  Why?  Because of Occupy Wall Street and all the support and attention it's getting.  That support may generate interest in the efforts of the New York and Delaware Attorneys General to investigate Wall Street and the mega-banks chartered in their states, which so far has drawn the often prescient attention of Rachel Madow.  How do they get the public view turned away from them?  A better economy.  Whether that motivation is enough to sway them from the temptation to try to get a wet dream deregulatin' GOPer in the White House by cooperating in keeping the economy weak, remains to be seen.  But actually promoting a better economy to lower the temperature and get eyes off them is a possibility--especially if Occupy Wall Street and jobs remain a hot focus, and the GOPer presidential field continues to look so weak than their efforts on their behalf wouldn't make a difference anyway.

Climate Crisis Denial

The most recent study once again proving that the planet is getting warmer has gotten a lot of attention, probably because it convinced at least one prominent denying scientist.  But the economically and politically  motivated professional deniers just go to the next of four levels.  First, prove to our satisfaction that the earth is heating.  Second, prove to our satisfaction that this heating is caused by industrially produced gases--i.e. that it's "manmade."  Third, prove that it's going to get so bad that we have to do something preemptive about it.  Fourth, prove that your solutions, like green energy, will work.

It's taken at least 20 years to win the first argument, if it is well and truly won now.  The pros are moving on to the second.  So this is not much of a victory, if we continue to insist that we have to convert deniers before we do what's necessary.

Meanwhile, Cowboy Rick has announced a jobs program which is all about extracting more oil and gas.  If this gets traction, it's very dangerous.  If there's any hint of public acceptance of this premise, it could doom efforts to influence the Obama administration to stop the oil sands pipeline from Canada, an issue which is otherwise gaining strength among the environmentally conscious.  I don't think activists appreciate the political risk in stopping the pipeline, though I support stopping it.  It vivifies an issue for the GOPer candidate--it puts a name on the abstractions of too much environmental regulation, etc.  Just about the only hope is that authentic polls show that voters aren't buying the "drill our way out of this" strategy.  Beyond electoral politics, it's hard to say no to something that will create jobs, especially if "safety" isssues are addressed.  Unless opposition coalesces around the longterm Climate Crisis catastrophe with enough clarity and force to make it real.  Or--even better--unless opposition can show that the promised jobs won't materialize.        

Blowing in the Wind

I never learned to love the smell of tear gas in the morning, but a new generation is finding out how they feel about it.  Copious clouds of tear gas enveloped Occupy protesters in Oakland, CA on Tuesday night, and judging from the footage I saw on TV, things are a little different than during the Vietnam War protests.  I don't recall tear gas hitting with such explosive force, and police now have other "non-lethal" weapons like flash grenades and rubber bullets.  But one protester was critically injured during the police assault--a Marine vet, who survived two tours in Iraq but was felled on the streets of his own country.

This example only sharpens the analogy that Frank Rich makes to the Bonus Army encampments and their destruction at the beginning of the Great Depression, when Hoover was President, and such later military luminaries as MacArthur, Patton and Eisenhower got some practice routing unarmed and jobless Great War veterans, some of whom immediately joined the one million men riding the rails.

Rich says that just as military violence against the Bonus Army (in Washington to protest that they were not receiving their promised war bonuses) inflamed public sentiment to the Bonus Army side when these scenes were shown in movie theatre newsreels, so YouTubed police violence against The 99% demonstrators has galvanized public support for them.  Rich pointedly does not make an analogy to Vietnam protests, when the opposite happened, so I'm not as sure as he is that public opinion won't turn against Occupy.  But he seems pretty certain:

    "These efforts to domesticate and contain the protests are unlikely to succeed. It is not frustration that’s roiling America but anger, the anger of a full-fledged class war. Try as polite company keeps trying to ignore it, that war has been building in this country and abroad for much of this decade and has been waged in earnest in America since the fall of 2008."

A Congressional Budget Office study adds more informational fuel to this by calculating just how thoroughly this secret class war has been waged and so far won--by the 1%.  According to the Washington Post summary: "For the 1 percent of the population with the highest incomes, average income grew 275 percent between 1979 and 2007, the report said. Middle-income Americans saw just less than a 40 percent rise during the same period, while the 20 percent of the population on the bottom saw an 18 percent increase."

On Wednesday, congressional GOPers led by Paul Ryan tried to turn up the heat on protesters and make President Obama sound like an outside agitator.  While I am less certain than Rich that public opinion won't turn, there is certainly a lot more public support for the Occupy positions than there ever was during the antiwar era.  Huge majorities favoring taxing the 1% more, say that incomes are too unequal, and that Wall Street is too politically powerful.

Politically all this does seem to be hung around the necks of GOPers.  A hefty majority sees the GOP as primarily looking out for the rich.  And Congress (which in image as well as substance, is GOPer) is polling at an approval rating of 9%.  Not three 9s, just one.  Meanwhile, the Tuesday theme--from an ultraconservative in the New York Post to Morning Joe and the ever-reasonable Pat Robertson--was the disgust of  conservative GOPers for the GOPer presidential field and their Barnum & Bailey politics.  It was orgasmic.

So even though Frank Rich doesn't think that 2012 elections will settle anything--and there's reason to see that in the congressional districts and Senate seats that seem to be in play--there's really no predicting that far into the future at this point.  It's hard to see what happens next with Occupy.  It can't sustain this level of attention for much longer without changing something--either politically or at least in form.

One tipoff for me will be just how many people get to know the name of Scott Olsen, the vet whose skull was fractured in Oakland.  It was just such an event in Tunisia that jumpstarted the entire Arab Spring.

Emerson for the Day

"Sow an action, and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and reap a destiny."

William James

It Did Happen Here

The reading of It Can't Happen Here at Dell'Arte last night went very well, and my intro was well-received.  It was a great experience being part of the reading with such good actors.  I was most impressed however by the attentiveness of the audience.  There was no scenery, no costumes, no music, not even a microphone, and nothing much was happening on the stage--just fifteen people sitting at tables across the stage, reading the play and interacting as much as they could, but sometimes conducting dialogues with people between them.  And people were listening to every word, for 2 and a half hours total, including one 15 minute intermission.  Awesome.

I'm sure my own reading about this Great Depression period will inform future posts, as it has altered my perspective on what's happening now.

Several people involved in the reading remarked on how little they knew about the Federal Theatre Project.  Here again is the link to what I wrote about it on Stage Matters.

It Will Happen Here (Tonight)

Tonight some 23 readings of the play It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis will be held across the United States.  These readings celebrate the 75th anniversary of the play's premiere--with 23 productions in 18 cities--a singular event in American history and American theatre.  These 1936 productions were by the Federal Theatre Project, part of the New Deal efforts to break the cycle of the Great Depression.

One of these readings will be held here on the North Coast, at Dell'Arte in Blue Lake.  I will be one of the readers, and I am introducing the event with a few choice words about Federal Theatre, and the play, which is about how a fascist dictatorship takes over the U.S.

Like a lot of Federal Theatre productions, this one is free.  Though I'm told ours at Dell'Arte is pretty much "sold out" with advance reservations.  For information on these productions, on the play and especially the Federal Theatre Project, please check my postings at Stage Matters.  (These posts are always accessible by clicking on the "Federal Theatre Project" or "Great Depression" labels.)

So I've got to go study my script now, and practice my Vermont farmer accent--sorry, that's fahmah, isn't it?

Our Long National Nightmare is Ending

President Obama on Friday, announcing that the last American troops in Iraq will be home by the December holidays:

"So to sum up, the United States is moving forward from a position of strength. The long war in Iraq will come to an end by the end of this year. The transition in Afghanistan is moving forward, and our troops are finally coming home. As they do, fewer deployments and more time training will help keep our military the very best in the world. And as we welcome home our newest veterans, we’ll never stop working to give them and their families the care, the benefits and the opportunities that they have earned.

This includes enlisting our veterans in the greatest challenge that we now face as a nation -- creating opportunity and jobs in this country. Because after a decade of war, the nation that we need to build -- and the nation that we will build -- is our own; an America that sees its economic strength restored just as we’ve restored our leadership around the globe."

What's the Matter with Iowa?

Expanding a bit on points in my "Evidence" post, and indulging in petty politics for a moment:

Iowa is a diverse state, more so than it's given credit for.  But the Iowa GOP is not, most reporters say, and especially not the core GOPers who vote in their caucuses.  It is heavily Rabid Christian Right, or Teavangelical.  And therein lies a tale, or two.

It will be the first test for the GOPer prez sweepstakes.  If Newt Romney wins it, conventional wisdom sez that the nomination is his, because it's where he's weakest.  So far he's not even campaigning there.  Recently there have been hints that his campaign sees an opening, because he's doing surprisingly well in polls and nobody else is running away with the field. 

So the Iowa caucus will test this presumption: that the Iowa GOPer participants are all about Teavangelical dogma and prejudices (otherwise known as "social issues" or "culture wars") and don't much care about electability or the economy or anything else.  That would be just about be deep-sixed by a Romney win.  Except...

Everybody else is running as a Rabid Right Xtian.  But nobody is emerging as the favorite--maybe nobody is pure enough, or has thrilled enough people, or spread enough money around--who knows? ( Most of them don't have much money to spread around, 'cept Cowboy Rick.)  So they could divide the Teavangelical vote and Romney could win, except...

He's Mormon.  That makes him dangerous as far as Tvans are concerned.  He may not get enough votes to prevail even in a divided Tvan field.  Or, at the last minute, in a panic at giving the Mormon the win, people unite around one Tvan.  Michele.  Herman KochCain.  Rick Sanctimonious. Mitt Gingrich.   Or Cowboy Rick. 

This is where you gotta like Cowboy Rick, on paper at least.  He's got the money and organization.  And Tvans might be convinced by that, because a Tvan who wins here, will need to win in South Carolina, Florida, etc.  Cause Newt Romney will likely win New Hampshire.  Only Cowboy Rick can make the case that he has the resources to move on.  But he's doing poorly in Iowa so far, so this would be a last minute, hot-breathing, now let me drive you to the caucus argument.

But this is only if  Iowa Tvans show a new capability of being reasoned with.  If they can be, maybe Tvans elsewhere can be.  If not...then we may be looking at a Tvan independent/third party candidate, because these folks won't settle for a non-Tvan, like that Mormon.

The wild card in all this is Ron Paul.  He's not Tvan but he's not Romney, and he's got a core of very particular true believers.  If he wins Iowa, it upsets the media narratives, and the conventional wisdom is that he won't win anywhere else.  But this is not a conventional year.

Whoever the non-Romney winner in Iowa is, that person's one hope is that the Kochheads show up at the victory party with a big, big, big check.  Which oh yeah could happen.  Then what's the matter with Iowa matters.  

Robin Hood in the 21st Century

I don't know much (yet) about the Robin Hood tax proposal in the UK, which my old stomping grounds of Adbusters is promoting for general use, with a global march on Oct. 29.  But Bill Nighy is an actor I admire greatly, and this ironic "commercial" for this idea is worth watching for him alone.  (He's in some of the Johnny Depp Pirates movies, but among his best screen roles is another and much less known pirate movie, called Pirate Radio.  A great movie about 1960s rock in the UK. )  Still, the idea has obvious appeal, and may well become a 99% Movement proposal.  

The Evidence is In

The evidence is in: it is that the evidence doesn't matter.

In connection with an upcoming event I'll get into later, I've been reading about the Great Depression period, and politically, there's an awful lot that's familiar: namely the same amnesia just a few years after near catastrophe, the same irrational politics, including hysterical media figures and ignoramus right wingers.  There are big differences--for instance, that the economic collapse was so much worse that FDR was given much greater power by an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress to act fast and on his own.  But the political culture was not all that different.  Which means--and I don't know if this should be comforting or not--that today's apparent insanity is not all that unusual, given the roiling changes and fear out there.

But it does help explain why this craziness, and especially this inability to confront real evidence and realistically address problems, is so ascendant.  It's probably in that Bob Dylan quote up there: "It's not dark yet.  But it's getting there."  It isn't dark enough.  Not yet.

But everybody knows it's getting there.  People just fixate on different causes, and ignore evidence to the contrary.  Really, really ignore it.

Not everybody, of course.  The Occupy Wall Street/99% Movement is basically trying to bring back a sense of reality, as well as urgency.  But when it comes to GOPers especially, to that "coalition" of the self-serving and determinedly deluded, they insist on really, really ignoring the evidence.

How else to explain the discourse at the GOPer presidential debates.  Apart from what's become a generalized explanation--that many if not most of the candidates aren't serious candidates, they are just enhancing their brands for the lucrative Rabid Right (Corporate plus Teavangelical) markets.  There is a pandering to the particular fantasies, feelings and primarily hatreds of the "base," that doesn't really care about any evidence to the contrary of their believed realities.  Or as Jonathan Bernstein perfectly puts it: "It's not Rick Perry and Mitt Romney who aren't serious; it's the party they're trying to lead."

Clearly congressional GOPers aren't serious about addressing the economic suffering.  They defy political realities as well as economic ones, and make clear, stark choices that feeds perfectly into the 99% narrative and the Democratic analysis.  When the Senate filibustered and therefore killed the part of the jobs bill that provides funding to rehire and keep on the job teachers, police, firefighters and first responders, refusing the minuscule millionaires' tax that over two-thirds of the electorate favors--where is the political sanity, let alone the governance sanity, in that?  They made it possible for Harry Reid to say with very obvious accuracy that they killed "a bill that would have kept 400,000 teachers in the classroom and first responders on the job because they refuse to ask millionaires to pay their fair share."


Also on Thursday, most GOPers refused to give President Obama any credit for a successful outcome in Libya.  The GOPers have such hypnotic (and probably other) power over America media that they are able to suppress evidence from public consciousness of a record that would make any other President a lock for reelection.  To the point where people apparently have to feel apologetic for noticing it.

And of course, the truly momentous example of ignoring all evidence is denying the realities of the Climate Crisis.  Yet another study released Thursday concluded that scientific issues raised by skeptics had no meaningful effect on the conclusion that global warming is real, and very, very evident.   But it won't matter.  Climate Crisis denial is faith-based, including faith in whatever you have to say to make a lot of money from people paying you to believe what they tell you.   It's also fear-based, which accounts for that percentage of people who swing back and forth on the question.  Most of the deniers are irredeemable, but this group will swing back to accepting the reality right in front of them, when it's so dark for so long that the darkness can't be denied.

I confess that I can't figure out what's going to happen with the GOPers in their presidential selection process.  I'm a bit confounded by Cowboy Rick's weakness in the polls, and without winning Iowa (he's way back in the pack now), no one seems likely to derail Newt Romney, despite GOPer disdain for him.  And that's the true test of this unreality: the "base" is requiring such purity of simplistic stands and grievances that are so patently unrealistic for anyone who has thought for even two seconds about them in the real world, that no one is going to satisfy them.   "It's not Rick Perry and Mitt Romney who aren't serious; it's the party they're trying to lead."  (Well, actually I don't think they're serious either, in the sense of having serious approaches and solutions to serious problems.)

But this is such a powerful trajectory right now that its very insanity seems to say that it has to play itself out, and nobody knows where this is going.  There's enough in the polling data to permit the hope that the country won't be crazy enough to replace President Obama with one of these virulent crazies--and I include Newt Romney in that assessment, judging him by his campaigning words.  But it is really hard to see how any of these growing problems--and especially the combination of a collapsing economy with a collapsing climate--are going to be realistically addressed,  if Congress stays as crazy as it is.

Romney Revealed

In honor of the Vegas debate Tuesday, of which TPM said, "The gloves were well and truly off, and the crowd moved on from booing only hypotethical sick people, or real gay soldiers, to booing basically everyone on stage."

Unfortunately, we can't read Newt Romney's lips when he dissed those thousands of American homeowners who face forclosure thanks to shady practices and bank greed, when he told (for real) a Nevada newspaper: “Don't try to stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom."

You might also enjoy this confession in pictures of Cowboy Rick's reaction to his rise and fall.

And after all this hilarity, you might want to check back into the real world, via the latest Occupy Wall Street news. Don't miss the Robin Hood Tax video with the incomparable Bill Nighy.

The 9% That Counts (With An Illustrative Update)

9% has entered the news in a very important way, and this time it's not the 9% that Herman KochCain is proposing for a national sales tax.  In fact, it is the 9% of news stories that's the scandal.

It is the percentage of stories that cover President Obama favorably in the American media, according to a new Pew study.  That's not 90% or 19%--it's 9%. That's right--the liberal lamestream media included.  9% of the coverage of President Obama was favorable. It is the lowest percentage of favorable coverage of any current candidate for the office that President Obama currently holds.  By a lot.

In contrast, Cowboy Rick got 32% favorable coverage, Herman KochCain 28% and Newt Romney 26%.

President Obama also got the highest percentage of negative coverage, with the exception of Mitt Gingrich who beat him by a point, 35% to 34%.  For Romney, the unfavorable was 27%. 

The only good news in this study might be that a bare majority of the coverage was deemed "neutral."  But Pew wasn't seeing the significance of it in that way:

"One man running for president has suffered the most unrelentingly negative treatment of all: Barack Obama. Though covered largely as president rather than a candidate, negative assessments of Obama have outweighed positive by a ratio of almost 4-to-1. The assessments of the president in the media were substantially more negative than positive in every one of the 23 weeks studied. In no week during these five months was more than 10% of the coverage about the President positive in tone."

And this kind of coverage continues.  Here's the first sentences of a Christian Science Monitor report on President Obama's speech on his Jobs Bill in North Carolina: "When the going gets rough, blame the other guys. That appeared to be President Obama's game plan Monday..."   Beginning with a questionable and negative premise, it takes the GOPer point of view.  It's a GOPer talking point press release. (Here's another story that reports what President Obama said and how it was greeted.)

Add this to the non-coverage of what the President of the United States says and does (and then pundits complain about what he's not saying or doing, mostly because they don't know what that is) and it is a significant wonder that once again, President Obama is trusted by Americans to fix the economy over the GOPers by some 15 points.

But this is still a scandal.  That the media will not cover, of course.

Update: I missed this contemptible (and awfully familiar-sounding) lead to a report on this study in NBC's First Read: "When times get tough for politicians, they're usually not shy about blaming the media for their sagging fortunes."  Once again, a questionable judgment as a premise, and even worse, a false report.  This is a report about the Pew study.  Nowhere does it say that any politician (notably one would assume, President Obama) blamed the media for anything.  The study blames the media, and this story is itself evidence of the study's accuracy.  It is a defensive "news story" that is gratuitously negative about President Obama. 

KochCain

Pundits note the quick rise and fast fall of a series of Rabid Right GOPer presidential candidates, and are having a hard time taking the latest seriously: Herman Cain, formerly the head of a pizza company with an ethnically insulting name, and now the leader of the anybody-but-Romney pack.  But there is another kind of pack reason to take him very seriously.  In fact, two hundred million reasons.

It also explains the mystery of Cain's rise.  He is the wholly owned product of the Koch Brothers, as reported in detail by the Washington Post.  The Kochheads are said to have committed two hundred million dollars to the coming election, through pacs and whatever else Citizens United allows them to do.  That money can be further leveraged in the states that GOPers installed by the Kochheads control. 

Despite his complete lack of any knowledge of foreign policy or much of anything else, and with the extreme TEvangelist dogma he is not shy about spouting as guiding his actions, he is a candidate high in the polls thanks largely to his Koch connections.  His chances at the nomination are dependent on the Kochs.  The extent of catastrophe for the country even if he is nominated, let alone elected (and don't forget the changes in voting laws instituted by Koch-directed ideologues in a number of states), cannot be overestimated.

In response to the Post article, he said he was proud of his connection to the Koch Brothers. His credibility in terms of being a serious candidate is 999% due to the Kochheads.  And so I now dub thee Herman KochCain.  

A Faith in Hope

President Obama spoke at the dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial.  These are some of his words:

"We forget now, but during his life, Dr. King wasn’t always considered a unifying figure. Even after rising to prominence, even after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. King was vilified by many, denounced as a rabble rouser and an agitator, a communist and a radical. He was even attacked by his own people, by those who felt he was going too fast or those who felt he was going too slow; by those who felt he shouldn’t meddle in issues like the Vietnam War or the rights of union workers. We know from his own testimony the doubts and the pain this caused him, and that the controversy that would swirl around his actions would last until the fateful day he died.

I raise all this because nearly 50 years after the March on Washington, our work, Dr. King’s work, is not yet complete. We gather here at a moment of great challenge and great change. In the first decade of this new century, we have been tested by war and by tragedy; by an economic crisis and its aftermath that has left millions out of work, and poverty on the rise, and millions more just struggling to get by. Indeed, even before this crisis struck, we had endured a decade of rising inequality and stagnant wages. In too many troubled neighborhoods across the country, the conditions of our poorest citizens appear little changed from what existed 50 years ago -– neighborhoods with underfunded schools and broken-down slums, inadequate health care, constant violence, neighborhoods in which too many young people grow up with little hope and few prospects for the future.

Our work is not done. And so on this day, in which we celebrate a man and a movement that did so much for this country, let us draw strength from those earlier struggles. First and foremost, let us remember that change has never been quick. Change has never been simple, or without controversy. Change depends on persistence. Change requires determination." 

" Dr. King refused to accept what he called the “isness” of today. He kept pushing towards the “oughtness” of tomorrow."

And so, as we think about all the work that we must do –- rebuilding an economy that can compete on a global stage, and fixing our schools so that every child -- not just some, but every child -- gets a world-class education, and making sure that our health care system is affordable and accessible to all, and that our economic system is one in which everybody gets a fair shake and everybody does their fair share, let us not be trapped by what is. (Applause.) We can’t be discouraged by what is. We’ve got to keep pushing for what ought to be, the America we ought to leave to our children, mindful that the hardships we face are nothing compared to those Dr. King and his fellow marchers faced 50 years ago, and that if we maintain our faith, in ourselves and in the possibilities of this nation, there is no challenge we cannot surmount.

And just as we draw strength from Dr. King’s struggles, so must we draw inspiration from his constant insistence on the oneness of man; the belief in his words that “we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” It was that insistence, rooted in his Christian faith, that led him to tell a group of angry young protesters, “I love you as I love my own children,” even as one threw a rock that glanced off his neck."

"And so at this moment, when our politics appear so sharply polarized, and faith in our institutions so greatly diminished, we need more than ever to take heed of Dr. King’s teachings. He calls on us to stand in the other person’s shoes; to see through their eyes; to understand their pain. He tells us that we have a duty to fight against poverty, even if we are well off; to care about the child in the decrepit school even if our own children are doing fine; to show compassion toward the immigrant family, with the knowledge that most of us are only a few generations removed from similar hardships.

To say that we are bound together as one people, and must constantly strive to see ourselves in one another, is not to argue for a false unity that papers over our differences and ratifies an unjust status quo. As was true 50 years ago, as has been true throughout human history, those with power and privilege will often decry any call for change as “divisive.” They’ll say any challenge to the existing arrangements are unwise and destabilizing. Dr. King understood that peace without justice was no peace at all; that aligning our reality with our ideals often requires the speaking of uncomfortable truths and the creative tension of non-violent protest.

But he also understood that to bring about true and lasting change, there must be the possibility of reconciliation; that any social movement has to channel this tension through the spirit of love and mutuality.

If he were alive today, I believe he would remind us that the unemployed worker can rightly challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonizing all who work there; that the businessman can enter tough negotiations with his company’s union without vilifying the right to collectively bargain. He would want us to know we can argue fiercely about the proper size and role of government without questioning each other’s love for this country -- (applause) -- with the knowledge that in this democracy, government is no distant object but is rather an expression of our common commitments to one another. He would call on us to assume the best in each other rather than the worst, and challenge one another in ways that ultimately heal rather than wound."

"It is precisely because Dr. King was a man of flesh and blood and not a figure of stone that he inspires us so. His life, his story, tells us that change can come if you don’t give up. He would not give up, no matter how long it took, because in the smallest hamlets and the darkest slums, he had witnessed the highest reaches of the human spirit; because in those moments when the struggle seemed most hopeless, he had seen men and women and children conquer their fear; because he had seen hills and mountains made low and rough places made plain, and the crooked places made straight and God make a way out of no way.

And that is why we honor this man –- because he had faith in us. And that is why he belongs on this Mall -– because he saw what we might become. That is why Dr. King was so quintessentially American -- because for all the hardships we’ve endured, for all our sometimes tragic history, ours is a story of optimism and achievement and constant striving that is unique upon this Earth. And that is why the rest of the world still looks to us to lead. This is a country where ordinary people find in their hearts the courage to do extraordinary things; the courage to stand up in the face of the fiercest resistance and despair and say this is wrong, and this is right; we will not settle for what the cynics tell us we have to accept and we will reach again and again, no matter the odds, for what we know is possible."

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

“Of all skepticism, the saddest is the refusal to believe in the possible.”

William Salter

Is God a Democrat?

An irresistible item from T.G.'s Political Wire:

Anita Perry said yesterday her husband Rick Perry was called by God to run for president and noted some of his rivals for the Republican nomination "may feel like God called them too."

Apparently, according to Bloomberg, that's very true.

Karen Santorum, wife of Rick Santorum, said her husband was also called, noting "we believe with all our hearts that this is what God wants."

Michele Bachmann said she regularly receives "assurance" from God about her direction, including running for office.

Herman Cain has also said that God wanted him to run. "I just know at this point I am following God's plan."

All of which might cause one to wonder, is God confused?  Or...